Hello, December!

…and hello, all. How is your December progressing?

I have been busy, as usual. In November, I participated in NaNoWriMo, even if I didn’t even tally my daily word counts on the NaNo website. Apparently, they were having a lot of problems.

But at least I wrote a couple of chapters. That’s something.

I am currently in between editing gigs, so I have been writing, and organizing my writing/editing desk, among other things.

Also, as we are moving soon, we are definitely organizing things. So there’s that. We, of course, are packing the kid’s room and stuff for last. That will be much less stressful for him.

However, the cleaning, decluttering, and removing things from the walls has begun. So after I get things set up in the new apartment, I’ll take some photos and film a “studio tour” video. However, as of this writing, I don’t even know where that will be.

I did take some video yesterday, by the way, while I took a walk. I don’t think I’m doing the Vlogmas thing, as I wasn’t planning on it, but I do want to do a weekly video on my YouTube channel. I’ll give it the ol’ college try.

Anyway, I wanted to talk about my plans for the year.

My Plans for 2020 

This coming year will be interesting. As I will have a different space to work in, it may be a difficult thing to get used to. I’ll have to see how it works out.

My plans for the year–in my professional life, that is–include finishing up my novel, getting more work as a freelance editor, and making art.

As far as my novel goes, I am hoping to be finished with my draft, do a self-edit, and be ready for beta readers before June, at any rate. If I finish before that, great. If not, that’s all right. Life goes on.

But as far as my freelance editing business goes, I would like to grow and get better at what I do.  In order to do that, I am planning on getting some additional continuing education. As of right now, I am a member of the Florida Writers Association, and within that organization, I am a writers group leader (well, to be specific, it’s a critique group). But I am also going to join ACES, the American Copy Editors Society, as soon as possible.

In addition, I am going to sign up for their Certificate in Copy Editing, co-sponsored by the Poynter Institute.

Here is a quote from the Poynter site, which gives an in-depth description of the courses involved:

“The Poynter ACES Certificate in Editing gives you a solid understanding of the standards, essential skills and best practices of editing.”

Yes, there is no serial comma in that sentence because Poynter concentrates on teaching journalism. And so they use AP (Associated Press) style, of course.

Anyway, the six courses involved in the certificate are quite in-depth. They are: Fundamentals of Editing, The Art and Science of Editing, Clarity is Key: Making Writing Clean and Concise, Getting it Right: Accuracy and Verification in the Digital Age, Writing Online Headlines: SEO and Beyond, and Language Primer: Basics of Grammar, Punctuation and Word Use.

I highly recommend anyone thinking of entering the freelance editing workforce to get certified. I know I am, even though I’ve been doing this for a long time.

Another thing I’m going to do to hopefully bring in more possible clients in the new year is to start putting out a newsletter. So I’m researching topics for that, as well as topics for my YouTube channel, which is basically an offshoot of this blog, like it’s been all along. And I plan on uploading weekly to the channel, no matter what. And I also plan on blogging at least monthly. And as far as art goes, I plan on entering a few art shows.

So, these are my main goals for the year.

Plus, I’ll be doing the mom thing every day, so on occasion, I might relapse and then have to catch up.

To quote Kurt Vonnegut, “And so it goes.”

Have a great day, everyone!! Thanks for reading.

-Heather

P.S. Please let me know if you liked this post. Everything helps me out, folks!